As used herein, the term “storage device,” refers to any physical host device capable of performing storage related functions. Thus, storage devices include, but are not limited to storage servers (filers), network attached storage (NAS) devices, direct attached storage (DAS) devices, etc. Typically, the storage devices are coupled within a storage network or storage system.
A performance object refers to a logical or physical subsystem of a storage device. For example, the performance objects for a storage device may include disks, volumes, Central Processing Units (CPUs), Host Bus Adaptors (HBAs), Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs), etc.
Typically, a storage device has a number of performance counters to collect performance data relating to each of its performance objects. Examples of performance data include statistical data, system status data, system configuration data, etc. The data collected by the counters is useful in assisting a storage system administrator to identify performance related problems in a storage network. However, often a storage system administrator has no knowledge of the counters available for a storage device, and may further lack the skill to collect data from the counters. Typically, if a storage system administrator finds that there is a storage related problem with a storage system, the administrator contacts a customer support center and obtains a script from the customer support center to collect and view counter data for the storage devices in the storage network, in an attempt to diagnose the cause of the performance related problem. Such an approach is not always successful, since the actual historical data relating to when the performance related problem actually occurred may not have been collected, and may, therefore, not be available.